


The Sun And The Sea

by ice_hot_13



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Dallas Stars, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-17 09:13:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8138665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13
Summary: Wing!ficTyler's wings are beautiful; they cannot be the reason that people push him away. (Companion fic to Ангелы просят прощения (Angels Apologise); doesn't really matter which order they're read in!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ангелы просят прощения (Angels Apologise)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1872627) by [ice_hot_13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13). 



            Tyler is four, and has no idea why his mother calls him her sparrow. He doesn’t know why it makes his father frown, either; this is just all he knows, his mother saying _my little sparrow,_ his father saying less and less.

            “We _can’t_ leave,” his mother is saying in the other room, “don’t you understand how important it is for Tyler to be here? To _grow up_ here?”

            “We can’t let him think this is normal forever,” his dad says, “what, do you want to surprise him, when he’s ten? He has to grow up learning to cope with it, not so sheltered he thinks every kid’s like him.”

            “He’s _four,_ he’s still so little –”

            “If he’s subjected to it while he’s still little, then he’ll grow up used to it. It’ll make him stronger.” Tyler doesn’t fully understand the words, but he understands his dad’s voice – it means this is what’s going to happen, it’s the _we’re leaving the park now_ voice, the _it’s bedtime_ voice, the _stop crying_ voice most of all.

            Tyler’s mom comes into his room a few minutes later, picks him up off the carpet and kisses his hair. “Honey,” she starts, and Tyler smiles up at her. “You’re going to go to a new preschool soon, doesn’t that sound exciting?”

            “Yes!”

            “And we’re going to move to a new house, in the city, because Daddy has a new exciting job, just like you’ll have a new exciting preschool.”

            “Just like Daddy,” Tyler chirps. “We can get Daddy a new bag, like I gotted a new backpack before?”

            “Honey… the kids at this preschool are going to be different than the ones at your preschool now.”

            “How?”

            “Well… they don’t have wings like you do,” his mom says, and Tyler blinks at her in confusion.

            “No?”

            “No, you’ll… you’ll probably be the only one. And they might ask questions, and that’s okay if they’re being nice and you feel like answering questions.”

            “I like questions,” Tyler says helpfully. He doesn’t know why his mom seems worried about this; he answers questions all the time at preschool, especially the alphabet ones his teacher asks them. Tyler’s great at the alphabet.

            “And… sometimes, kids don’t know what to do when they see something different,” his mom says, pets over his hair gently, “but you’re going to have to be… be strong and remember that you’re absolutely wonderful and perfect, okay?”

            “Mama, it’s okay,” Tyler says, because she seems worried, “new preschool is fun! I like new things!”

            On Tyler’s first day of school, three boys push him off the top of the slide because they think he’ll fly; that’s what Tyler keeps telling his mom, when they’re sitting in the hospital, a green cast on his arm.

            “It’s okay!” Tyler keeps saying, “we were just trying to fly!”

            “Baby, you can’t fly,” his mom says, seems so sad about this.

            “It’s okay,” Tyler says, because he doesn’t mind, really. Flying seems scary anyways, and what if he got lost and couldn’t come home? His mom sighs, kisses his forehead.

            “Stay away from those boys, okay? They aren’t nice boys.”

            “Yeah, they’re my friends! They were just tryin’ to help me fly! They didn’t know!”

            “Tyler,” his mom says, and her voice is so, so sad, “they already knew you can’t fly.”

            “Then why’d they push me?” Tyler asks, bewildered, and he doesn’t know that the answer is simple, horrible – he just sits there and flutters his white wings while he thinks it over, unaware that the answer is right there on his back, feathers brushing against the hospital bed.

\--

            Tyler has _seen_ his wings. They’re, honestly, beautiful. They’re pure white feathers, the softest he’s ever felt, an elegant arch of a wingspan. Even the tattoo-like marks on his back that they disappear into are beautiful, impossibly intricate lines drawing wings that dip down his back, feel like feathers to the touch. They’re _gorgeous;_ they cannot be the reason that Ty breaks his heart.

            “I don’t get it,” Tyler says, hates how his voice shakes, “what’d I _do?”_

            “You didn’t really do anything,” Ty says, like Tyler doesn’t know how he sounds when he’s trying his best not to say something.

            “If I didn’t do anything, then how come we’re-” Tyler can’t say it, can’t say _breaking up_ when they aren’t officially together, when the thought makes him want to cry regardless. “We don’t have to tell anyone still, is that why?” Tyler pleads, “I’m okay with that! We can keep doing that!”

            “That’s just it, Tyler!” Ty finally says, louder, “ _I_ don’t want to keep doing that!”

            “That’s okay, too, we can tell anyone you want-”

            “I don’t _want to!”_

            “But you just-”

            “I don’t want to tell people I’m dating _you,”_ Ty says, and he’s always had cold eyes but Tyler never really saw it before, did he? “I want to date someone that I _want_ to tell people about!”

            “Like… a girl?” Tyler is floundering, flailing, wants to grab onto Ty and beg him to stay steady.

            “No!” Ty throws his hands up, looks towards the door like he wants to leave, but it’s his apartment. “This isn’t hard, Tyler! I just don’t want to keep seeing you.”

            “I just, I don’t get _why.”_ Tyler tries to keep his voice steady, just keeps trying. His hands clench tight around the corners of the kitchen counter, restlessly clenching and unclenching. He can feel his wings twitching too, the strain of holding back tears too much to reign in. This can’t – it just _can’t,_ Tyler loves him too much. Ty is everything to him, the first boy Tyler ever kissed and the one Tyler gave everything to eagerly, Ty is _his._ Tyler _belongs to him._

            “I want to date a guy who I want to tell people about, okay?” Ty blows out his breath slowly, jaw tight. “Can we just be done with this?” _Who I want to tell people about,_ the way Tyler talks about Ty, proud and fawning, the way Ty apparently doesn’t talk about him.

            “You’re embarrassed cos it’s me?” Tyler asks, quiet, because that’s it, isn’t it? Ty doesn’t answer, looks down. This is always the reason – why Tyler didn’t have friends as a kid, why no one wants to date him, why Ty wants him to go. Tyler’s gone over it again and again in his head, and the reason is still as obvious as ever: it’s because of him.

            “Look at you,” Ty mutters, turns away.

 _I don’t wanna be friends with a winged freak,_ one of the kids said, back in fifth grade, but that’s obviously just the easy answer. This isn’t about Tyler’s wings, different but obviously beautiful, this is just about who Tyler _is._

“I get it.” Tyler leaves quietly, blinking tears down his cheeks. He never gets used to this part, doesn’t bother hoping he ever will. It’s post-companionship loneliness, would be better if he’d never been with anyone at all.

 _Wings,_ he scoffed tearfully, back when his mom gently told him that was why the kids were being mean to him. Tyler isn’t stupid; there’s more to it than just his _wings_ – they wouldn’t be such an obstacle if Tyler was worth looking past them.

Maybe if no one knew about them, he thinks, when he’s lying in bed at three AM, still sniffling, maybe if there wasn’t a glaring reason to stay away from him, he’d be on even playing field with everyone else. Still _himself,_ but without this extra burden he puts on people.


	2. Chapter 2

Tyler feels almost deceptive; everyone he’s met so far in the NHL doesn’t know he has wings. It feels like presenting an alternate, not entirely real version of himself. It feels hopeful; if they don’t know _him,_ the way he really is, they might _like_ him. This is going to be different.

Tyler has dreams where he re-meets Ty, wing-free. Tyler is still needy and clingy, still reaches for Ty too often, but in his dreams, Ty can hold him without being faced with evidence that even if they overcome this, there will still be obstacles they can never get around.

“This is all,” Tyler tells him, feels free, “we can work on this.” Like Ty’s already dreamlike blue eyes, a wingless Tyler fits perfectly into this flawless image.

This is how Boston feels, like all Tyler has to do is work on entirely fixable things, and he’ll be okay. Later, when he’s better, he can be all of himself, and that’s more than acceptable to him.

(A tiny part of him imagines calling Ty on that day, confident and perfect and so desirable that his wings are barely a blip on Ty’s radar for trouble).

“Hi,” Tyler says on his first, first day in Boston, “I’m Tyler.”

“I’m, um,” Brad says, blinks at him, and in these first few seconds, it’s obvious that to him, Tyler is perfect. Tyler’s heart soars, no wings needed.

\--

Brad is infatuated; Brad is exactly what Tyler needs, exactly what he loves.

They lose badly in Pittsburgh, and Tyler is in a sour mood because of it. Admittedly, even this isn’t so bad. Tyler loves being in this kind of bad mood – just like everyone else, easily fixable. He’s upset because he didn’t play as well as he could have, and so is everyone else, and God but Tyler loves being just like everyone else. He also scored the only goal of the game; Tyler really loves being just like everyone else and maybe a tiny bit more special. Tyler is _good,_ even in the midst of less-than-great things.

“No, no, wait,” he hears Brad’s voice from down the aisle, as David is sitting in the empty seat beside Tyler. “That’s definitely mine.”

“The chair?” David asks, looks at it like he’s honestly expecting to see Brad’s name on it. He then looks at Tyler, like he’s expecting the same thing.

“Yup,” Brad comes to stand expectantly beside him, David already picking up his things. “Shut up,” he adds, probably in reference to the amused look on David’s face. Even David, who doesn’t understand much until it’s translated for him, is in on the team-wide joke: Brad is obsessed with Tyler. “You _ditched_ me,” Brad tells Tyler, dropping into David’s vacated seat. Tyler grins at him.

“You were just too slow,” he says. Truthfully, he earnestly ditched Brad; Tyler likes slipping away from him, to see how Brad runs to catch up with him, like Tyler is magnetic. He likes it because he knows that Brad is definitely going to come after him.

“You could have saved me a seat,” Brad pouts, pushes up the armrest between them, just like always. He’s pouty probably sixty percent of the time, and Tyler is ridiculously endeared by it. Brad is loud and throws his emotions around like confetti, welcoming with his wild adoration.

“I always want you to sit next to me,” Tyler says. He’s lavish with his affection for Brad, thrilled every time Brad likes it, which is every single time. Tyler just, he _basks_ in this, feeling adored. It’s like there’s nothing wrong with him at all, and all he had to do was hide his wings. They’re not even going to be a problem, soon enough; Brad will definitely end up liking him enough that they won’t even matter, Tyler is sure of it, is thrilled that the person he likes is also so _good._

Tyler dozes off with his head on Brad’s shoulder, dreams that they’re on top of a towering slide, Brad’s arms around him.

            “He can’t fly,” Brad’s telling someone else – Ty, maybe? – as he pulls Tyler back from the edge. The sun shines bright above them, and under its warmth, Tyler is actually quite sure that he could, could fly right into the sun if he wanted to, everything brilliant and warm around him.

\--

            “We might actually do it, you know,” Brad whispers to Tyler, standing right behind him at the bench, voice soft under the music of the national anthem echoing in the arena. It feels impossible that they _won’t;_ Tyler is here, is known as _amazing,_ is in love in a way that doesn’t hurt. Winning the Cup feels easy in comparison to everything that’s happened on his way here.

            It feels so possible the whole time, that a part of Tyler isn’t even _surprised_ when they win. Ecstatic, yes, but not surprised, because somewhere along the way, Tyler started to feel charmed, impossibly lucky. This is what _happens_ to him, when he’s like this – his first season in the big show, and here he is, winning _everything._

            It’s the way he feels when Brad kisses him later, falls into him and kisses him, the bar dark and deafening around them.

            “Sorry,” Brad pants when they’ve parted, his hands still tight in Tyler’s shirt, like even as he apologizes, some part of him knows that nothing about this is wrong. It’s just them, hidden in a little corner away from their teammates, and it’s just them in the whole world too, this everything to Tyler.

            “Me too,” Tyler says, grins and yanks him closer to kiss him again. Brad kisses him back eagerly for a long moment, before he draws back a little, blinks at him questioningly.

            “So – so what’re you sorry for, then?” Brad asks, like he’s not following, and Tyler laughs, full to bursting with happiness. _Everything_ is this – perfect, charmed, falling effortlessly into place, Tyler is lost in this for how it’s become everywhere around him.

            “For stopping kissing you for a second, stupid,” he says, and then they’re kissing again, grabbing for each other like even pressed together isn’t close enough. Everything feels _amazing,_ the whole world lit up with this feeling, Tyler high above it all, flying towards the sun.

\--


	3. Chapter 3

            Tyler is sure of Brad; he doesn’t really know what brings him into the tattoo shop, the summer after they win the Cup. He’s sure, he’s so sure, but he’s come here a handful of times already, but his wing etchings are slowly disappearing into the tattoos surrounding them, like he’s doing it purposefully.

            _He’ll still love me,_ Tyler reminds himself, looking over his shoulder into the mirror. Designs swarm from his arm over his shoulder, swirl into the spaces around his wings. _He’ll still love me,_ he thinks, _this is for everyone else._ It’s just so it’s easier to hide in the locker room, that’s all. He hasn’t been trying to hide it from Brad, as he slowly added pieces to the artwork already covering his skin. It mostly feels like he’s doing it for his past self, the vulnerable, open self who let Ty see everything right from the start and then had nowhere to hide; it’s retroactive protection.

            Tyler doesn’t feel like that person anymore; he’s mostly sure that it’s not because of his new ability to hide his wings, and is just because he’s actually changed for the better.

            “This is pretty common, you know,” the tattoo artist offers, as Tyler’s looking into the mirror, “and I mean, etchings are a good base for a tattoo, you know? Easy to add to.” Like they’re just part of Tyler, something to seamlessly fit into the landscape of himself. It’s a weird, offhand thing to think about.

            “It’s not to hide them,” Tyler hears himself say, half defensive.

            “Did you want them… more visible? I can do that,” the tattoo artist looks vaguely confused, probably because everything’s been turning out exactly as Tyler asked, “like… make the other lines sharper? More shading would-”

            “No, no, I mean, it’s perfect the way it is,” Tyler says, “I just… I mean, y’know. Wanted to add on to the look, like you said. I love it.” He feels weird about the thought of hiding them, is all, like – like it’d be admitting that _they’re_ what’s wrong with him, and not just himself. They’re not fixable, and he is.

            They’re as beautiful as they’ve ever been, when Tyler unfolds his wings at home, looks at how the tattoo he’s spent the past year on curls around them, and they’re – not unloveable. And Tyler is loveable despite them, or – or something. The takeaway is a little muddled, when Tyler tries to think it through.

            Sometimes, he wants to call Ty and ask _was it my wings or just me or both together? If I didn’t have them, would you have loved me? If I was better, would you have loved me anyways?_

\--

            Everything is great; everything has been great since Tyler’s first season, and that’s his excuse for telling Brad nothing, still. It’s the start of their third season together, Brad says he loves Tyler, and maybe Tyler should tell him.

            Tyler just keeps not telling him and not telling him and then one morning, he wakes up and hears “what the fuck, Tyler!” and all he can feel is heat, panic and fear boiling immediately inside him.

            Brad’s in his bedroom doorway, and how could Tyler have never predicted this? They’ve been dating for so _long,_ it’s hardly surprising that one day, Brad would let himself into the condo unannounced on a morning when they have breakfast plans, want to kiss his boyfriend in bed. Tyler hadn’t thought about it happening, because that’s what Tyler does, just doesn’t think about it.

            “Um,” Tyler manages, pushes himself up hurriedly. He was asleep, wings splayed out, and he’s suddenly awake and blinking in the too-bright light coming in from the window and everything feels white-hot and surreal. He feels too starkly like himself, wings out in the open, too _him._

            “You never – how could you not _tell_ me?!” Brad still hasn’t come in past the doorway, like he can’t get any closer, like Tyler is burning too hot to come near. “Tyler?” he nearly pleads, this furious, begging voice Tyler’s never heard before.

            “I just, I didn’t,” Tyler babbles out, “I didn’t know what you’d think.”

            “You _didn’t know what I’d think?”_ Brad says, and that’s – that’s it, that’s the last thing he says in a world where they’re together in any way.

            “But,” Tyler whispers, doesn’t know if he wants to say _but I love you_ or _but you loved me,_ just wants to protest at the whole world, at all of this.

            Brad is gone; Tyler is burning up, falling, isn’t flying anymore.

\--

            The next morning in the locker room, Brad looks the way Tyler feels, and Tyler wants to go home, the home where Brad is welcoming and smiling, where no one is looking at him like this.

            Brad must have told someone, that’s the only explanation for this. Tyler can’t be imagining it, how everything feels cold. Maybe it’s just because of the comparison, because having Brad felt like warming, losing him felt like burning, and Tyler’s just getting farther and farther away.

            Tyler looks to either side of the bench from him – far down one side is David, and Tyler inches closer gradually, until he can elbow David.

            “Hey,” he ventures, and he doesn’t imagine the hesitation on David’s face before he nods back. And is that – is that him being mad on Brad’s behalf, because they’re friends? Is it him being disgusted because of Tyler’s wings? Tyler knows exactly which teammates come from backgrounds that are especially against wings; Tyler targeted those people as teammates he needed to try extra hard with, win over with full gusto so they _couldn’t_ take it back if they found out.

            Even as he tries to convince himself of anything else, he can’t un-know: David would have heard people like Tyler called a _Pták_ _Sníh,_ a snowbird, the half-human counterpart to the Pták Ohnivák, the folklore firebird who brought blessings and doom. He’d have heard that a _Pták_ _Sníh_ was once a firebird who had no blessings to give, was cursed for its deception with flightless wings and human misery.

            “Sorry,” Tyler whispers automatically and David just half-nods, looks away. Tyler doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for, just that it doesn’t feel like enough.

\--

            Tyler sees the end coming. It’s nearly indiscernible from the rest of the awful storm of his life, but it’s there. Brad has barely spoken to him since they broke up, Tyler’s withdrawn himself away from the entire team as much as he can, he feels like he’s been drifting for a long time, and it’s impossibly noisy, the way he fills the space.

            “Are you even gonna miss me?” Tyler blurts out, because they’ve told him _Dallas,_ and for a city he’s visited so many times it feels as faraway as if he’d never heard the name, because he can’t think straight anymore and there’s Brad, disorienting Tyler even more because he used to make Tyler feel like he _wasn’t_ lost.

            “How could I?” Brad mutters, “I don’t even _know_ you.”

            He looks almost startled when Tyler starts to cry, which just goes to prove his point – he really doesn’t know Tyler at all. Tyler ducks away, leaves the bar, almost calls Ty three separate times on the long walk home. He wants to call the Ty who loved him, the same way he often wishes he could call the mother he had when he was little, the one who didn’t yet know that her winged son would be the reason for the divorce that was going to break her heart.

            Eventually, inevitably, he does it. The worst part is that it takes a few tries – hammers in over and over, as he redials three times, that he’s deliberately calling Ty.

            “What?” Ty answers on the fourth attempt, “Tyler, it’s three in the morning, what are you _doing?”_

            “I just – I want to know why you didn’t love me,” Tyler blurts out, not because he might never say it if he doesn’t now, but because these are the only words left he even has. “Was it _me?_ Or was it cos I’ve got wings? Which one is it?”

            “It was _years ago,”_ Ty says, like it isn’t permanently _only yesterday,_ a day Tyler just can’t step away from.

            “Yeah, and I’m still the same thing,” Tyler’s voice shakes, “so I gotta know which one’s the thing that meant you couldn’t love me.”

            He hears it, though. The tiny sigh that means he’s not going to get his answer; this tiny moment is why they lasted as long as they did. This is the moment that Tyler is so pathetic, Ty pities him and eases up.

            “It wasn’t you, it was me,” Ty says, and all that tells Tyler is that whichever it is, it’s the one Ty thinks he couldn’t handle hearing. Tyler doesn’t even know which that means, at this point, and just hangs up.

            _“Dallas,”_ he says to himself, but like this – all alone in Boston, everything dark and quiet and empty around him – it doesn’t sound like somewhere he wouldn’t want to escape to, if it meant leaving behind all of this. Leaving this means starting over, and this time, everything is going to happen differently.


	4. Chapter 4

Tyler has waves of braveness that carry him to Dallas. It’s not sustaining enough that he feels _okay_ again, but it gets him here, all the way onto the plane, all the way to the airport. It doesn’t get him out the door and into Dallas.

            “Hey!” he hears, when he’s frozen to the spot, overwhelmed by the thought of leaving here, driving to the hotel, going to his room, all the tiny, insurmountable steps hiding in between. He looks up and it’s Jamie – Jamie, who looks deceptively familiar, because Tyler watched videos of his games and interviews and tried desperately to figure out how to be someone Jamie would like.

            Tyler couldn’t figure it out. Jamie skated through players like a bull, flicked in goals with delicate piano-player hands, blinked big cow eyes at the cameras, and fought like he couldn’t stop once he’d started. Tyler had to tell himself that complimenting Jamie’s play style would be enough, moved on to nervously comb through the roster and pick out the players who could be predisposed to dislike him. One might think he’s the cursed counterpart to the _Nattravnen,_ a few could think he’s committed the sin of the aнгел убийца, but thankfully other than that handful, it’s just the regular, old-fashioned North American dislike for winged people. That was easier; Tyler got shakier when people looked at him like he was cursed or something, like he was part of some ancient, dark story, had done things he didn’t know about. It felt too big to handle.

            “Hi,” Tyler offers, and he’s abruptly so, so nervous, because he knows what he looks like to Jamie and he knows that he feels so much weaker than it implies, doesn’t know how to uphold that.

            “Well, um. Welcome to Dallas,” Jamie says, smiles a little. Jamie _looks_ nervous, and it throws Tyler off so absolutely, he feels like he’s actually stumbled. “I know it’s not… like Boston, but I just –” Jamie pauses, takes a breath, like he’s rehearsed this part and still isn’t sure of it, “I know I barely know you, but I really do think you’ll like it here, honest. It’s good hockey but it’s… quieter? In a way? Because it’s not a big hockey town? And I just… as your captain, that’s what I want to give to you.” Jamie, incredibly, is turning a little pink. Tyler feels like he could melt.

            “Quiet?” he asks, and Jamie nods. Tyler feels himself smile. “I’d like some quiet.”

            --

            Dallas is a thousand things, but most of all, it’s Jamie.

            It’s Tyler digging himself out of the hole Boston became for him, pushing and pushing and pushing to be better, sorry to be Dallas’s new burden and so desperate to prove he’s worth all the bad press that came with him. It’s the exhaustion of meeting new teammates, the emptiness of a new apartment, the anxious attempts to get people to like him.

            It’s Jamie; he’s at Tyler’s side every day, he’s big and quiet and calming, he’s the shyest person Tyler’s ever met, but also the only one who will look at him dead-on and say something honest.

            “You don’t seem like the guy all the media described,” Jamie says to him on his fifth day, and he was shy in the grocery store when he went with Tyler, quiet when he talked to the cashier and turning red when he fumbled with his card, but he looks at Tyler steadily now, “I think this is the way you want to be. You can do that here, if you let yourself.” He’s funny this way, this intersection of himself and his captain self. Sometimes, Tyler thinks it’s like this because Jamie wants to apply his captain’s confidence to things not quite within that sphere – namely, Tyler.

            “I’m tired,” Tyler says, and Jamie flinches a little, like he thinks this is a deflection, so Tyler plunges on, “Boston got really… really hard. I couldn’t do it anymore.” Couldn’t live with a team that hated him; things went sour so fast, it made Tyler’s head spin. Even when it was good, it was exhausting, flying relentlessly higher at a speed he couldn’t keep up. “This already feels good for me.”

Dallas, but also Jamie; Jamie feels good for Tyler, warm and steadying and welcoming. Tyler could fall into him, never come up for air. He looks at Tyler like Tyler could do no wrong, because Jamie already knows everything he’s done. It happens like falling; Tyler doesn’t have time to worry that he has feelings for Jamie, because he’s already on the way down.

\---

            It’s not long before Tyler builds habits. He goes over to Jamie’s all the time, he gleefully bothers Jordie, and he loves every piece of this routine, right up until he realizes he’s walked right into someone else’s routine.

            Tyler doesn’t… _dislike_ Val. Val’s just a kid, a Russian kid who Tyler didn’t realize was hanging around Jamie quite so often until it’s been a week and he realizes Val’s been over at Jamie’s every time Tyler’s been over. And Val’s nice, but he’s always here, and Tyler just _got_ Jamie, he can’t be… be someone else’s already.

            Jamie invites Tyler over one afternoon, and when Tyler arrives, Val’s already there. Tyler lets himself in and hears Val’s voice, and maybe his heart sinks a little.

            _I want him to myself,_ he wants to plead with this kid, _please don’t like him the way I do._ Tyler doesn’t know how to talk to people like that; he didn’t know how to share when he was little, was so desperate for friends that he’d give over all his toys immediately. He was usually left empty-handed and alone; Tyler’s terrified to see the pattern repeat itself now, in the face of a possible competition like this.

“Since when do you bake?” Tyler asks Jamie as he sits at the counter, because he can be normal, he _can be._

“What did you say? Was it ‘no, Chef Jamie, I _don’t_ want any snickerdoodles’? Because that’s what it sounded like,” Jamie says, and Tyler snickers.

“Do we have to call you Chef Jamie now?”

“Yes.” Jamie frowns. “How many teaspoons are in a cup?”

“…. _why?”_ Tyler asks, but Jamie’s already on a mission to find his phone to figure out the answer, wanders out of the room.

Tyler doesn’t even hear it when Jordie comes in, but Jordie announces himself with a flick to Tyler’s baseball cap, and a “hey, Russian Benn,” in Val’s direction that makes Tyler lift his head.

“What’s that mean?” he asks Jordie, who’s busy getting water from the fridge and looking into Jamie’s mixing bowl.

“Seems self-explanatory,” Jordie laughs, “he’s the Russian Benn. Don’t tell him he’s adopted, I don’t think he knows yet.”

“The _nice_ explanation is that he’s like a baby brother,” Jamie says from the doorway, and Jordie grins in agreement. And – _oh,_ if that means what Tyler thinks it does –

“I not have anyone here, when I come to country,” Val adds, “they like family.”

“That’s good,” Tyler manages, nods. It’s… it is good, is the thing. Val’s in an entirely different section of Jamie’s life than Tyler wants to be, that’s good.

For a moment, Tyler feels triumphant, but it’s like the uplift before a stumble; Tyler doesn’t automatically win Jamie over just because Val doesn’t happen to want him like that. Tyler’s still… Tyler, and for a second, he thought he would win over Jamie just like that, just like he was normal and the only thing that could stand in his way was another person. Tyler’s not like that, and for a moment, he almost forgot; it makes him feel colder in this way he can’t seem to pull away from.


	5. Chapter 5

Things _feel_ like they’re going well, They have the trappings of it – good hockey, Jamie spending time with him alone – but good things have always felt like that, a trap, weighing Tyler down until their weight sinks him, because he’s not strong enough to carry them with him on his flight.

He can’t hold everything, and one afternoon, Val walks into the showers and, like pitching a ball at a juggler who’s only looking up, gives Tyler something he can’t add into the act.

“You have-” Val blurts, and Tyler flinches hard under the water, glares over his shoulder. He knows, in an instant he knows, because Val looks shocked, bone-deep shock like he’s rattled to his core, and Tyler finds he was almost expecting this, waiting for it. Val knows, everyone’s going to know, and predicting the end of the world doesn’t make it any less earth-shattering when the day finally comes.  

“Have _what,”_ Tyler snaps, all-but storms out of the shower, nearly shaking with the effort to hold himself together.

His plan was to spend the afternoon with Jamie, and, in what feels like an act of defiance, Tyler still does that. Jamie, in this brief time before everyone knows, is _his._ He still smiles at Tyler like he used to, still looks over his shoulder before going into the restaurant to make sure Tyler’s following, this is Tyler’s still for a little longer.

In the end, it makes Tyler desperate. He’s not ready for a going-away day with Jamie; he’s _not ready._ Jamie’s – he’s nothing Tyler’s ever had before, he’s too important for Tyler’s wings to take away, either from or with him. Tyler comes out of the numbness fighting, and he calls Val.

“Hey, um,” he starts, loses everything he was about to say as soon as Val picks up, “Hi, Val.”  

“Hi?”

“I… I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being a jerk today,” Tyler starts, because that seems true. He doesn’t really remember what he did or how he sounded, but his voice had echoed in the showers. “And, um. About what you – saw. I wanted to – just – could you please not tell anyone?” He’s begging now, and he will, he’ll _beg_ to keep this life, “ _please,_ it’s – it’s so important to me that no one knows.”

“I promise,” Val says, startling Tyler, “not tell anyone.”

“Thanks,” Tyler breathes. He doesn’t like it, his life resting in someone else’s hands, but in a way – maybe it’s a tiny bit of a relief. It’s lighter than it being on his own shoulders, and Tyler is reckless in the lightness.

\--

It happens so fast, it feels like Tyler falls into it, so fast it’s like he’s already been falling and this is just what comes next in the tumble.

“You have to promise to forget it if you don’t like it,” Jamie says, and he’s twisting the end of one hoodie sleeve in his fingers, broadcasting nervousness. Everything Jamie feels is like that to Tyler; maybe that’s why Tyler’s heart is racing now, but with an undercurrent of calm. He knows the flavour of Jamie’s hopeful nervousness, and it’s nothing like his upset nervousness. This, Tyler knows, is the good kind.

“I will,” Tyler swears, “instant amnesia. You can trust me.”

“ _Instant._ And, and forever,” Jamie says, eyes earnest, already pleading for this not to be the case, “I just think – it’ll eat me up if I don’t tell you, and that’s probably selfish to-”

“I want you to feel okay,” Tyler says, “Jame, please.”

“This is such a bad idea,” Jamie whispers, but like it’s already happening, like it’s already swept him away.  

“ _Jamie.”_

“Sometimes, it feels like – um, well. I want -” and Tyler sees it, the moment Jamie does his shift, like he’s captaining himself, as familiar as the way he smiles. “I have feelings for you,” he says, firm. Then he just looks at Tyler, waiting for him to react to it. That’s what Jamie does, with a sureness that Tyler longs for, just does what he can and weathers what comes from it. Jamie waits in a way unlike anyone else, where it isn’t passive, where it’s a challenging and a withstanding.

Tyler’s been waiting too, but Tyler waits like he’s flinging himself into it headlong, hurtling, already full-speed when it comes.

“ _Oh,”_ he says, and this time, the place he falls into is Jamie’s arms.


	6. Chapter 6

Tyler has no clear message to himself about his wings, and Jamie makes that painfully apparent. He doesn’t know if they’re insignificant to him, or part of his very essence, because he’s never been able to figure out how much at fault they are, what answer would hurt less. He doesn’t know, so he doesn’t know if Jamie is missing a vital piece of him or not. .

And this, being _in love with Jamie,_ it shouldn’t feel so much like falling towards something inevitable. Tyler clings and clings, but he has a foggy idea of where he’s going anyways.

And this, this is when Brad walks back into his life, just for a moment, and he might have the answer, because he _was_ Jamie. He was Jamie, loving Tyler and not knowing, and he’s what Tyler doesn’t want Jamie to turn into: gone, hurting, not in love anymore.

After the game, Brad shrugs when Tyler catches up to him, asks if he wants to hang out. It’s been long enough that the hurt on his face isn’t in such sharp relief anymore; it’s still nothing like the way he used to look at Tyler, though.

“Just, like… catch up, and stuff,” Tyler says, and Brad shrugs again, but nods a little.

It takes a few hours to work up the courage to ask him. The longer it takes, the harder it almost seems to get, because Tyler’s surrounded by _Boston;_ his old team, a private room in a bar, enough drinks that everything blurs just a little, this is Tyler’s Boston brought to Dallas.

“Was it me?” Tyler asks Brad suddenly, “was it – was it my wings, or was it me?” Brad blinks at him, a quiet pocket amidst the din. “Which is wrong with me?”

“What was wrong with _me_ that you didn’t tell me?” Brad says, and the hurt on his face is fresh now, like yesterday, Tyler woke up and his wings made Brad run from the room. Did he run? Tyler can’t remember now. He remembers the sunlight. He remembers the emptiness.

“It wasn’t – wasn’t about you, it was, before you-”

“What, it was Ty? It was your family? Is everyone getting blamed for the person before them? At what point is it just _you?”_

“It’s, but,” is that Brad’s answer? Tyler’s stammering now, can’t order his thoughts into words. It _is_ because of other people, because he learned from that, because people _hurt_ him and what’s to stop the next person from being the same? Isn’t he allowed to protect himself? “I didn’t know what to do, I don’t know why people do that, so I don’t know how to know if the next one won’t.”

He shouldn’t be having this conversation here; he shouldn’t be having it with Brad. He should be with Jamie, but he doesn’t know what he’d be saying, just knows the vague, needy feeling of wanting Jamie. Everything’s swimming a little; Tyler wants to collapse and give up on understanding it.

“I wasn’t going to _hurt_ you,” Brad sounds angrier now. Tyler sniffles a little.

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“Because you _knew_ me!”

“You didn’t know _me,”_ Tyler points out, but it’s a bad, bad point to make. Brad scowls the way he does when he’s really, really hurt.

“I fucking realized that,” he snaps, “I thought I did, but you just wanted me to think that, you’re this, this fucked up mess that thinks you can like, edit who you are or something, decide what I get to know about even though I _loved_ you, like you can just – just pick yourself apart and only use the good pieces, you don’t get to _do_ that!” Tyler can’t follow, feels tears welling up at the hurt frustration – is it him? Is Brad saying his wings are bad pieces, so it’s his wings’ fault? Is he saying it’s all Tyler?

            Tyler doesn’t know what’s happening; he can feel himself sobbing, shoulders shaking from it, and the fact that he can feel his wings curling around him doesn’t startle him, like they’re just an expected part of himself. Maybe that’s his answer, then.

            --

            “It’s not, not a Boston rookie thing, partying – I’m not like that. I mean, I went out with the guys, yeah, but – it’s a lot going on, there’s, uh, we – found out a Dallas guy has wings and I don’t want to – get into any of that. I’m staying out of all of that.”

            When Tyler hears this, Boston’s new rookie hurriedly covering up his mistake by doing anything he can to distract the media from himself, this is the end. This is Tyler hitting what turns out to be water, cold and all around him, pulling him down so he can’t fly away.

            --

            Jamie knows something’s wrong, because he knows Tyler – as much as Tyler’s let him, anyways. Tyler’s having bad games, bad days, can see Jamie struggling to find a handhold so he can hold onto Tyler through it.

            “Are you coming home with me?” Jamie asks, after a particularly bad game, a week after Tyler ruined everything. The media’s been on a hunt to find out who in Dallas has wings, Tyler’s been a wreck, and Jamie’s just _trying._ “Or can I go with you?”

            “No,” Tyler snaps, and he can hardly handle it, how Jamie always passes anger and just goes right to the real hurt. Tyler once heard that anger is a secondary emotion, only there to cover up other things, and Jamie, his sweet, transparent Jamie, never bothers with it.

            “Is something wrong?” Jamie asks, “did something happen? If it did – Ty, I don’t know what it is, I missed it, so please tell me.”

            “It’s nothing, just, drop it,” Tyler is nothing but secondary emotions. He’s pretty sure that if he faced the real ones with any kind of regularity, he’d stay where he is, drowning, uselessly fighting towards the surface.

            “If you don’t feel like you can talk to me,” Jamie starts, quiet, “why are you with me?”

            This – this is too much. Tyler’s not going to cry about it, right in the middle of the hallway, because he desperately wants to know it’s safe _before_ he talks to Jamie, because Jamie is right despite that, because Tyler wants him to be safe but doesn’t _know._ He’s with Jamie because he hopes he can, and that’s nothing to rely on.

            “Can I just talk to you later?” Tyler pleads, “just, I can’t, Jamie, okay? Not right now, _please.”_

            Jamie blinks at him for a moment, eyes thoughtful and sad. “Maybe one day you’ll open up to me,” he says, soft, sad, like he’s resigning himself to waiting even though it hurts him, out of ways to keep trying but unable to leave.

It makes Tyler _desperate_ to talk to him, but Tyler’s still – Tyler. He stalks away and detours into a closet instead of going home, because he’s shaking and starting to sob, and the last thing he needs is more people to know about the unsteady core of himself. He can’t _breathe,_ stuck in this underwater, can’t remember which way is up.

“You okay?” he hears, flinches hard at the sound. It’s Val at the door, of all people, looking at Tyler with a startling lack of surprise.

“Val, um. Hi.” Tyler rubs at his eyes with his sleeve, sniffles. “I, no, yeah, I’m – I’m fine.” Val just looks at him. There’s no point to lying to Val, Tyler decides, because he’s already _seen_ the reason. Val knows, and to Tyler’s knowledge, hasn’t even said anything. “Shit,” Tyler sighs out, “you already know already anyways, I guess. Is anyone else here?” Val shakes his head no, and then, Tyler can’t stop himself anymore. “I fucked up. I fucked up so bad, and it’s gonna fuck things up with Jamie, and I just – everything’s really bad.”

“Why?”

“I – when I went out with the Boston guys, I – did something stupid.” Tyler looks away, fidgeting. “Look, you – you know I’ve got wings. But – Jamie doesn’t know that. And we’re dating and everything, but I just – I couldn’t tell him, it’s always so _bad_ when people find out, so – I just couldn’t do it. And it’s been really hard to keep it from him, cos - I can’t ever let him see, but I’m with him all the time, and it’s all this sneaking around and it makes me feel like shit and it’s just not  _good,_  and - the pressure got to me, I guess, and I went out with the guys and got too drunk and I - kinda lost control, for like,  _a minute_ , I swear.”

“Someone see wings?” Val asks. He doesn’t look all that surprised. Maybe, knowing about Tyler’s wings, this isn’t surprising, more of a filling-in of details that explains why Tyler is the way he is.

“I don’t - I didn’t think so, I mean, it was a private room and stuff, but - the guys I was with did, some of ‘em. And there was this rookie kid out with us, and when they got back to Boston, I guess the media asked him about the partying? And - I saw the video if it, he was just saying whatever he could think of to distract them, probably cos - he doesn’t wanna be Boston’s new Seguin.” What a fucking phrase, Tyler had thought the first time he’d heard it. He was so disappointed in himself for making it a bad thing, it could have been _good_ if he hadn’t fucked up at the end. “And he mentioned - not a lot, but - enough, that there’s a guy on the Stars with wings. And the media’s trying to find out who it is and they’re - they’re gonna find out. I don’t want Jamie to hear it from them but I can’t tell him and I just don’t know what to do, I really don’t.” This, this is all it comes down to. This is why Tyler hasn’t slept in a week, why he wants to simultaneously cling to Jamie and push him away, in preparation for the end.

“That’s…  not good,” Val offers.

“Yeah. It’s really not.” Tyler rubs his wet cheeks, takes a shivering breath. He still doesn’t know if he should have told Jamie at the beginning, that’s the thing. Maybe he wouldn’t have had all this, maybe it would have stopped it all before it began. Maybe he’s selfish not taking that option.

“I’m sorry,” Val says, quiet. Tyler wants to cry all over again.

“Me too,” he whispers, “I really don’t deserve Jamie, but he’s the best thing to ever happen to me.”

            Tyler doesn’t know what comes after this; he’s just drifting now, lost underwater. Maybe this is just the end, and nothing happens after this.


	7. Chapter 7

 

Tyler has an almost physical inability to tell Jamie. No matter how many times he tries, opens his mouth and curls his tongue around the words, he _can’t._ There’s no air down here, he can’t fight past it, silence is crushing in on him and he can’t make the words leave his mouth.  Jamie can tell, of course he can tell, but if he’s frantically looking for a way to Tyler, it’s him searching the shore while Tyler sinks in the sea.

It isn’t Tyler who says the word _wings_ first.

“There’s rumours about a Stars player having wings,” the reporter says, and the whole world shudders to a stop. “Do you have any comments on that?” They know. It’s here, this day, the one Tyler’s been running from. This is the day that Tyler flung himself into the sun to escape, threw himself into the sea. This day, where everyone finds out, where everyone leaves him, this is why Tyler ran, why Tyler _flew._

“I –” in all of his worrying, all the million times he thought about this, he never did figure out what to do. His heart races, just makes it harder to form words, figure out anything beyond the panic, because Jamie – he’s right there, right over there, he can hear this, he’s about to find out. “it’s – I –” Tyler looks around, frantic, doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Jamie, maybe, or maybe just a way out.

He flinches when he feels a hand on his shoulder, turns immediately, but it isn’t Jamie. “Is okay,” Val says, and Tyler just looks at him, begging for some kind of way out.

“We heard from a player in Boston,” the reporter starts, holds out his mike, and doesn’t he _know_ what he’s doing? Why does he want to ruin Tyler so badly? Maybe it’s because Tyler deserves it, maybe witch hunts started because people genuinely believed they could do harm, maybe one day wings won’t be hunted down like this, or maybe one day he’ll find out that he _is_ bad –

“Is not rumour,” Val says, and Tyler gasps a little, jerks away. He’s ready to plead, to _beg –_ “Player with wings is me.” Val says. And – he’s lying. He has to be lying. Tyler would _know._ The reporters look unconvinced too, and of course they do, Val doesn’t have _wings._ “I show you?” Val says, voice soft, unafraid. 

Wings.

Tyler’s never seen them like this, wings that aren’t _his._ He can’t stop staring, staggers back a couple steps. They’re wings, but the most shocking thing is how they don’t look out of place. This is Val; his wings don’t burst from his back at an angle foreign to his body, don’t look like they were designed for something else and handed to him by mistake. They look purposeful, look at home between Val’s shoulders. They’re like any other part of him, have always _been_ part of him.

If Val is like that, then – then so is Tyler.

“See? I tell you,” Val’s saying to the reporters, smiling, and Tyler can only stare, floored by the relief he feels, feels _saved_ by this.

For a while, everything is a blur, that pauses momentarily when Jamie hugs Val in encouragement and Tyler’s heart soars, and again when Tyler gets Val to himself to babble out his thanks.

“I, um,” Tyler says, hugs him tight, “ _thank you._ I’ve been a jerk to you, because I thought Jamie liked you and then because you saw my wings and I just – I’m so fucking sorry, I can’t believe you still did this for me, it’s – thank you.”

“Is okay,” Val says, “I know, it’s scary, tell someone when not ready, and – is really good I can help.”

“Seeing him with you – I think – maybe I could tell him, and just – really, Val, thank you. You really saved me.”

Val’s here, like this, and it’s so wonderful of him to have taken the spotlight off of Tyler but what he’s really done – Tyler wants to sink to his knees and cry, unfold his wings and apologise to them for rejecting them and blaming them for everything that’s ever gone wrong, because to blame them was to blame himself in an indirect way that just allowed for even more shame, Val has wings and they’re just _him,_ and Tyler, wings and all, is something that can exist as he is and be loved for it. He doesn’t have an appendage that’s been the source of his downfall; He’s not the only one like this, he’s _seen_ that now, _knows_ Val to be good and deserving of love, and if he can be like that, Tyler’s wings are not to blame for anything. Tyler, whole and perfect, can learn to escape hurt because _he_ is not the source of all the pain, it isn’t following him, radiating from inside him. He can get to Jamie, and not find hurt there.

\--

Tyler waits until the morning. He needs time to come up for air, breathe unencumbered for a moment, and when he comes to the surface, Jamie’s there in bed beside him, blinking sleepily at him in the morning light.

“There’s something I wanna show you,” Tyler starts, pauses. Jamie looks at him, all softness in the mornings, mussed hair and drowsy eyes and sleep-warmed skin. “I don’t want you to think I was… was hiding it or anything, I just, I wasn’t ready until now.”

“Do you feel ready now?” Jamie asks, gentle. He never needs to be caught up, with Tyler, can always fall into stride with him like he knows everywhere Tyler is going just because he knows Tyler. It’s comforting, like Tyler can never get lost.

“Yeah.” Tyler doesn’t need to look around, take this in, the warmth and the softness and the gentleness. It’ll still be here, in the after, Tyler unchanged from the before, because this is not a reveal, it’s just a homecoming. He takes a breath, and watches some kind of understanding dawn on Jamie’s face as Tyler unfolds his white wings.

“Look at you,” Jamie murmurs, and he does, like Tyler is still completely familiar, like Jamie’s been seeing his wings all along.

The sun and the sea are fading memories now, unwise decisions that never became him. Like Icarus, Tyler in his escape went too high and too low, but it was just because he wanted to find home so badly. The sun and the sea are behind him now; Tyler has reached home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Find tons more fic at http://icehot13.tumblr.com :)


End file.
